Lowering costs for HIV drug / Gilead cuts price to less than $1 a day for developing nations

Bernadette Tansey, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, July 10, 2004

Photo: Liz Mangelsdorf

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Gilead Sciences Inc labs Research Associate Xiaoping Qi (cq) watches the Multiprobe Robotic Liquid Handling System selected and distribute compound that she is working with. She is working in the High Throughput Screeninig lab Photo by Liz Mangelsdorf/sf chronicle less

Gilead Sciences Inc labs Research Associate Xiaoping Qi (cq) watches the Multiprobe Robotic Liquid Handling System selected and distribute compound that she is working with. She is working in the High ... more

Photo: Liz Mangelsdorf

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Gilead Sciences Inc.'s Viread AIDS drug is pictured in this undated company photo. Gilead said second-quarter sales jumped on demand for the product, sending shares up as much as 11 percent to a record. Source: Gilead Sciences Inc./via Bloomberg News less

Gilead Sciences Inc.'s Viread AIDS drug is pictured in this undated company photo. Gilead said second-quarter sales jumped on demand for the product, sending shares up as much as 11 percent to a record. Source: ... more

Lowering costs for HIV drug / Gilead cuts price to less than $1 a day for developing nations

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Gilead Sciences Inc. dropped the price of its HIV-fighting drug Viread by nearly 37 percent for patients in 68 developing nations where the Foster City firm started offering the drug at no profit last year.

Gilead said it was able to reduce the cost of a one-day supply of Viread, its best-selling drug, to 82 cents by improving the efficiency of the manufacturing processes. The daily price was $1.30 in April 2003, when the company started its Gilead Access Program in all African nations and 15 other impoverished countries, including Cambodia, Laos and Bangladesh.

"We created the Gilead Access Program to make Viread available in resource-limited settings," said Gilead Chief Executive Officer John Martin. "This price reduction will make it even more widely available."

During the past year, Viread has been used or included in the treatment plan for 2,000 to 3,000 people under the Access Program. Gilead also provides Viread to 1,000 patients in Uganda at no cost, company spokeswoman Amy Flood said.

The United Nations estimates that 38 million people worldwide, 25 million of those in Africa, are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Since the diagnosis of the first patient in 1981, the AIDS epidemic has cost 20 million lives.

The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders last week sent letters to Gilead and other drug firms pleading for price breaks that would extend treatment to greater numbers of afflicted people in poor nations.

The group asked Gilead to price Viread at about $100 a year, said David Olson, medical adviser for the U.S. branch of Doctors Without Borders.

"They didn't go as far as we would have liked," said Olson. "The price they charged makes it about $310 a year."

That puts Viread beyond reach in the least developed countries, Olson said. People with HIV can deter the viral infection from becoming fully developed AIDS by taking a combination of three drugs. Olson said generic drugmakers in India offer a three-drug combination for $260 a year, which is less than the new price for Viread alone. But Olson said he would like to see Viread added to the arsenal of HIV drugs that are more affordable in poor nations because it might help people who become resistant to other regimens.

Flood said Gilead is offering the drug at cost and continues to try to shave that cost. In the United States, Viread costs more than $12 a day. In 2003, Viread sales were $566.5 million.

Pacific Growth Equities analyst Greg Wade said the change in Viread's nonprofit price for poor nations should have no effect on the company's financial picture. But he said the firm's ability to reduce its manufacturing costs could improve profits on sales of the drug elsewhere.

Gilead shares lost 44 cents, or 0.67 percent, to close at $65.33 Friday.